Rogue Element

At last, the soldier had a target. Bullets zeroed in on the ruckus. A scream of surprise and death followed. The undergrowth came alive as countless snakes, lizards and small mammals decided they’d rather be somewhere else. The cracks from the carbine launched monkeys and birds from the trees. They squealed their distress at the sudden disturbance. Joe and the woman scuttled on all fours through the tunnel until they reached the relatively open ground that sloped down to the creek. They stood for a few seconds to get their breath, and a section of tree centimetres from the woman’s head suddenly split away from the trunk as bullets slammed into it. Joe had forgotten that two soldiers had been dispatched to his hill. The man stood, weapon coming up to his shoulder, in the middle of the creek. If they hesitated, the next shots wouldn’t miss. The woman pulled Joe to the ground and they scrambled for the thicker growth. But the jungle was too dense to penetrate. Nowhere else to go, they were forced back to the creek. They hid behind a mound of mud pushed up by the monsoon floods. Joe snatched a look over it. The two soldiers had now joined together in the pursuit and were running through the creek bed towards their hiding place.

One of the men opened fire just as he tripped on a stone. The bullet spat from the muzzle with a downwards trajectory. The propellant that launched the round burned through a thin layer of tin and ignited phosphorus packed into a hollow at the base of the bullet. It was a tracer. The projectile glowed fiercely red on its brief flight, striking the creek bed not far from the woman’s outstretched hand.

And then suddenly the flesh on Joe’s face was seared as the very creek itself exploded into a twisting, orange snake of intense heat. The punch of the explosion knocked the air out of him. A ball of flame was deflected by the mud bank and rolled skywards.

The two soldiers became human torches. Joe lifted his head and saw them run blindly through the firestorm. One of the men was discharging his weapon into the air, his finger convulsing on the trigger. Then they both dropped to their knees and fell forward into the river of fire, hissing like hot pans doused in a bucket. Their screams choked with a gurgle.

Sergeant Marturak’s attention was captured by the familiar report of an FNC80. The shots came from the hill being searched. It had been helpful of the old man to give up the whereabouts of the only other survivor. And it was good of that last living passenger to present himself as such a willing target.

Did killing the old couple give him pleasure? Perhaps not, but it was reassuringly professional to be able to do his job well. There were to be no passengers left alive. Those were his orders. The general had been very specific on that point. He had even elaborated on the reason why, saying the security of Indonesia depended on it. That was both unusual and unnecessary. An order was good enough for Sergeant Marturak and reasons were not required; following orders was his job.

The shots: he estimated thirty rounds. One whole magazine. That was wasteful. He’d sent two trained soldiers to shoot an unarmed man. It was a simple task, one his men knew well enough. It didn’t take thirty rounds. That smacked of panic. Other smaller bursts of gunfire followed. Odd. There was obviously something wrong.

Marturak saw the fireball before he heard the explosion. It took him completely by surprise and he felt the radiated heat of it on his face. There was another blast of gunfire and then a menacing, black mushroom cloud of smoke, forked with yellow and orange flame, rose out of the gully. What could have caused that? he wondered. Then the smell of burnt kerosene reached his nostrils and he put it together. One of the aircraft’s tanks must have ruptured and spilled its contents, the fuel pooling on lower ground. But what had set it off? He hoped his men had not had a careless smoke. No, they were good soldiers, the best, despite the spray of firearms. They certainly weren’t stupid. What had caused the explosion? He spat an order and four soldiers immediately jogged off to investigate.

‘Jesus! What happened then?’ Joe said, pulling himself up off the ground. The woman was dry retching. After she finished, she opened her hand and revealed a Bic disposable cigarette lighter. Her arms were bright red, burned by the heat.

‘Couldn’t you smell the kero?’ she asked. ‘It’s pooling everywhere here.’

‘Did you light it? With that?’ said Joe, incredulous.

‘I… I think so, yeah. There was some of the stuff — the kero — beside me.’ She stared at the lighter, every bit as surprised as Joe.

Joe’s breathing was short. He had just seen two men die a horrible death. They’d danced a ghastly jig as they’d tried to escape the flames that clung to them. If there’d been an opportunity to turn back, there was none now. Joe realised that killing, or being killed, was his only future.